Alphonse's Word
by Lotsa Bots
Summary: No one ever really asked Al's opinion. Here it is.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Notes:** Lotsa gives her sincerest apologies for the poor quality of this story. She merely submitted it on a whim. Also, she wishes to explain the meek 118 words that are Chapter 2. She wanted to make meeting Izumi a separate part. **end author's notes**

Human beings don't like to show their weaknesses, unless they can be an advantage. That's why he never cried. Not at all, the day our lives began to unravel.

My brother and I were racing home that late-summer's day. Each of us had a basket of fruit and vegetables for our mother. She was going to make stew, stew with milk. Stew, as Ed said, was the only good thing about milk. It's what he remembered about her. I remember her smile.

He ran in ahead of me, he won the race. But, even as young as I was, I knew something was wrong when his potatoes hit the floor. She was lying there, next to the kitchen table, next to leeks she must have been on her way to boil. Her face was sprinkled in perspiration and her breathing was like a teenager's first love, unsteady and shallow.

We ran to get Aunt Pinako. She called the doctor. He told Pinako in private that our mom's illness was not something new. He said she must have had it for a long time. I wondered, just then, why she didn't confide in us as we did in her each time we ran to crawl under the covers in her bed when we had a bad dream. Now, though, I know that it would have hurt her more to see us worry than to carry the burden herself.

Edward believed it was our father's fault. His fault that she was so sick, his fault that what happened to her did. Dad left us before I knew him and Ed still hates him to this day for it, but then we were desperate. We believed that if we sent letters to all the addresses on the envelopes sent by him, we could find him and we could bring him back. We believed that if he came back, Mom would be okay.

He didn't and she wasn't. One windy, early September night, Mom reached out for us. Holding both of our small hands in one of hers, she told us to work together and use the money Dad left for us. Mom's last request was for Ed to transmute something for her. "A ring of flowers would be nice," she said. "He always used to make them for me." Edward never made them for her. He never made them, I think, because he didn't want to be like Dad. I would have made them, I wish she had asked me, but she asked my brother. We both gripped her hand tighter, holding on to her, willing her not to leave. But, then, her eyes went dark and her hand slacked. Our mother faded from existence. Her soul went through the gate.

At her funeral, we covered her grave with bouquets filled with white lilies. Not transmuted flowers, just the regular kind. We stayed by her freshly-buried body until sundown when everyone, even Winry and Pinako, were gone. There, on our mother's grave, he swore to me that he would bring her back.


	2. Chapter 2

We lived with Pinako and Winry, for the most part, after that. They took care of us and fed us. It was a good life. It was as good as it would have gotten, if we hadn't messed it up so badly.

Pinako never allowed us to speak of human transmutation. She wouldn't allow that kind of talk in her house. And Ed called her a "backwards old bat" because of it. That was why we could never really tell you, Winry why we were studying so hard, that was why we were always hiding stuff from you.

We were wrong. It was your business. You were right. It was no fair.

We studied hard, but we needed more.


	3. Chapter 3

It was the day it just wouldn't stop raining, when we met our newest mother.

The discussion of the day was the proteins and their amounts in the human body. We stopped it to run as the first beat of the thunder bird's wings echoed through our country side, electricity charging the air from the powerful stepped leader that had hit its fellow some miles away.

Brother counted as we ran. The wind howled at the storm, pushing us towards our house. The weather came right on time and chased us through Winry's front door. The heavens were beating their earthly companions with what seemed everything they had. The river had no choice but to breach its boundaries and flood the surrounding land.

All the men we knew were there, carrying heavy sand bags through knee-deep, muddy water. We hid in a corner, away from their work, with a wet bit of paper that we thought would save the day. We didn't notice that the largest man around had a small, but notable, woman next to him under his umbrella.

The sandbags had all but given in and our immaterial transmutation circle had disintegrated in the blast of turbulent water that had shredded part of the river barricade. She clapped her hands, drawing us in at once.

We found her. We begged her. She was just too nice. She took us and gave us one month.


End file.
